Radical Bookfair returning to Derry later this month

Pilots Row Community Centre will play host to the second annual Derry Radical Bookfair later this month.

Organisers have confirmed that the Bogside venue will host the large gathering of independent radical press, book sellers, publishers and distributors on Saturday January 27 from 12 noon to 5pm.

Participants will travel from Scotland, England and Wales for the event, with a number of independent booksellers from across the north west also attending.

A spokesperson for the Bookfair said that following on from the “amazing” response to last year’s first Radical Bookfair they have decided to make it an annual event “for those of us across the north west to access literature not normally found in the usual multinational bookshops.”

Local historian Dr. Emmet O’Connor will give an account of socialist republican and trade unionist Peadar O’Donnell’s activism locally, while O’Donnell’s ‘There Will Be Another Day,’ now republished by Red Sky Books, will be launched.

Members of the Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee (IWOC) will discuss recent developments by fellow workers in the US, organising in solidarity with incarcerated workers, fighting against prison expansion and the increased capitalist exploitation.

Meanwhile, in ‘Fighting for language rights both sides of the Irish Sea’, Welsh and Irish language activists will facilitate a discussion on language struggles in an exchange of ideas and experiences.

The spokesperson said: “The idea behind creating our own radical bookfair in Derry happened following years of successful bookfairs both in London and Dublin.

“The initial concept had grown out of the first ever Anarchist Bookfair in London back in the early 1980s as part of an effort to provide solidarity and support to both independent, radical booksellers and publishers at that time who produced and distributed important and vital political texts relating to feminist, anarchist, queer, marxist and environmentalist thinking.”

“Over the last number of decades that idea has spread to almost every major city around the world of which Derry will now also be included.

The idea locally has spread to include local booksellers as well as local and international publishers and distributors looking to promote radical ideas such as queer liberation, anarchism, republicanism and

marxism. Once again there will be locally produced books and material

relating to Irish politics and labour history, not to mention our vast wealth books chronicling our own social history locally.”